Two hours had passed since the humans arrived in the Ascendant Realm.
Essim stood at the edge of his island, watching the construction circles glow softly as walls, towers, and barracks rose in slow motion beneath them. The stone wall surrounding the perimeter was forty percent complete. The Archer Wolf Lair pulsed with a faint amber light, its framework taking shape. In the distance, the skeleton of the Main Hall—a thirty-metre structure modelled after something between a European cathedral and a fortress keep—was beginning to emerge from the construction haze.
It was remarkable, and it was entirely insufficient. Because Essim knew that while his island grew, the rest of the region was growing too—and many of them had nothing to lose.
He reviewed the numbers. Opening five hundred silver chests had yielded nearly five thousand items and roughly thirty-four thousand Energy Crystals. His equipment had been upgraded from the initial market purchases to chest-quality gear, boosting his attributes by fifty percent. Both he and Aisha had reached Level 3. It was a strong start.
But a start was all it was.
"Brother." Aisha's voice came from behind him. She stood with her new staff—a gnarled black rod called the Corpse Stick, topped with a faintly glowing amethyst sphere. It looked like something a necromancer would carry in a bad horror film, but its power was no joke.
(Corpse Stick +2)
Intelligence: +10
(Temporary Life): Resurrects slain creatures as shadow warriors for 10 minutes,
granting them 50% of their original attributes. Corpses cannot use skills.
It was, without exaggeration, terrifying. Aisha had discovered the staff among the silver chest loot and immediately claimed it, replacing her Guine's Staff without a second thought. The Intelligence boost alone was significant, but the resurrection ability transformed every battlefield into a numbers game weighted heavily in their favour.
"The next island is close," she said, pointing through the thinning clouds.
Essim followed her gaze. Through the mist, a new landmass was taking shape—larger than anything they'd faced, roughly four thousand nine hundred square metres. Unlike the goblin camp or the wolf grassland, this island was fortified. Wooden fences stood a metre high around the perimeter, and crude watchtowers rose above them, manned by stocky, broad-shouldered figures.
[Muscle Bull Tribe Island]
Area: 4,900 square metres
Defence: Easy
Strength: Medium
Level: 6
More than twenty bull warriors stood in formation before the fence, each standing nearly two metres tall, their muscular frames bristling with aggression. They held iron-banded clubs and short swords, and their eyes—deep-set and intelligent—tracked the approaching island with wary hostility.
(Muscle Bull)
Level: 6
Attributes: Strength 16 | Agility 12 | Intelligence 8 | Resilience 14
Skill: (Hammer Boom) — For 10 seconds, attacks deal blast damage in a radius.
"This one will be harder," Aisha said, studying the stats. "They have structures. Organisation. And that blast skill could be a problem if they catch us grouped up."
Essim glanced at her with a faint smile. "You say that like you haven't checked your own status recently."
She had a point about the difficulty—but so did he. The silver chest upgrades had been transformative.
[STATUS]
Name: Essim
Level: 3 (40%)
Attributes: Strength 38 | Agility 31 | Intelligence 9 | Resilience 42
Equipment: Vampire Sword +5, Fibre Shoes, Combat Cloak, Rough Fibre Gloves, Hard Rubber Helmet
Talent: Infinity Duplicate (EX)
His weapon had changed too. The Evo Bow served well at range, but Essim had found something better among the chests—a weapon that rewarded aggression.
(Vampire Sword +5)
Strength: +10 (+2 from forging)
(Blood Energy): Each kill absorbs the enemy's blood, granting +2 Strength per stack.
Maximum 10 stacks. Duration: 5 minutes after last absorption.
He'd forged it to +5 using White Stones and Energy Crystals—a process with a seventy percent success rate that had consumed more resources than he cared to admit. But the result was worth every crystal. The blade glowed with a faint crimson pulse, and Essim could feel its hunger like a second heartbeat.
The islands collided with a gentle thud. The bull warriors roared and readied their weapons.
Essim didn't wait.
He crossed the gap between the islands in a single bound and brought the Vampire Sword down on the nearest bull warrior. The creature was massive—twice his weight, armoured in natural muscle—but Essim's Strength of 38 against its 16 meant the contest wasn't close. The blade carved through shoulder and rib as though parting wet clay.
[Killed Muscle Bull: EXP +9]
Blood splashed across the sword's surface, and Essim felt the first stack of Blood Energy ignite. A warm current flowed up his arm, tightening his muscles, sharpening his reflexes.
A second bull lunged from his right, club raised. Essim ducked under the swing and retaliated with a horizontal slash that opened the creature from hip to shoulder.
[Killed Muscle Bull: EXP +12]
From the watchtowers, flaming arrows streaked toward them. Most targeted Essim, but several arced toward Aisha at the rear. She didn't flinch. Raising the Corpse Stick, she channelled a sphere of dark energy and launched it into the cluster of bulls pursuing her brother.
The orb detonated silently. Where it struck, the grass blackened and the air shimmered with shadow. And from the bodies of the bulls Essim had already slain, dark forms rose—identical in shape to the fallen warriors, but composed entirely of black smoke and violet light. The resurrected corpses turned on their former allies with mindless, mechanical precision.
The bull warriors faltered. Fear replaced fury in their eyes.
Essim pressed the advantage, cutting through the outer defenders while the shadow warriors sowed chaos from within. The fence splintered under a charging shadow-bull. The watchtowers fell to concentrated strikes.
Inside the compound, over a hundred bull warriors had assembled for a final stand. Civilians—smaller bulls with wider eyes and no weapons—huddled inside their huts, watching through gaps in the walls.
Essim paused. For a single, uncomfortable moment, the scene reminded him of something human.
"Why did you attack our tribe?" one of the bull leaders called out. The words arrived in a language Essim had never heard, yet he understood them perfectly—the system translating in real time.
He didn't answer. There was no answer that would satisfy a creature watching its home be destroyed by strangers. Essim tightened his grip on the Vampire Sword and charged.
The battle ended in five minutes.
• • •
Afterwards, as they extracted materials from the fallen and took control of Bull Island, Essim and Aisha worked in relative silence. The haul was respectable—Hard Skin, Bull's Teeth, Energy Crystals, a few equipment blueprints—but neither sibling felt particularly triumphant.
"Brother," Aisha said quietly as they walked back toward the Main Hall construction site, "they had families."
Essim nodded. "They did."
"Does that bother you?"
He considered the question honestly. "Yes. But not enough to stop." He looked at her. "If we don't grow stronger, the next thing that attacks us might be something we can't beat. I'd rather feel guilty than watch you get hurt."
Aisha didn't reply immediately. When she did, her voice was measured. "Then let's make sure we get strong enough that we don't have to do this forever."
It wasn't absolution. But it was a direction.
"Let's rest," Essim said. "I'm starving."
"Me too," Aisha admitted, and for the first time in an hour, she smiled.